Albin Lohr-Jones/Sipa USA via AP Images A demonstrator holds a sign at a rally in opposition to the Republican tax bill held in Lower Manhattan This article appears in the Summer 2018 issue of The American Prospect magazine. Subscribe here . D espite a full-court charm offensive by the White House, its media surrogates, and big corporations that benefit most from the 2017 Republican Tax Act, the public stubbornly sees the truth: that President Trump’s tax bill was designed for big, profitable corporations and the wealthiest Americans. Two “big lies” drove the Trump tax cuts—the claims that corporate taxes were especially high, and that the president’s tax overhaul would be geared toward the middle class. The development of the Trump tax plan was the embodiment of the man himself: a moving target, vaguely defined, constantly changing, and sometimes reversing itself abruptly. In 2015, then–presidential candidate Donald Trump declared “tax reform” a central plank of his campaign platform...

(Photo by Albin Lohr-Jones/Sipa USA via AP Images) A demonstrator holds a sign at a rally in opposition to the Republican tax bill in New York City on December 2, 2017. S ince the $1.5 trillion tax cut pushed through by Congress and President Trump took effect in January, dozens of big corporations have engaged in a public relations blitz designed to convince middle-income families that they’ll benefit from the new law. Companies from AT&T and Boeing to Walmart and Wells Fargo have announced one-time employee bonuses or minimum-wage hikes, and have strongly implied that they simply couldn’t have made these worker-friendly moves before the new tax law chopped the 35 percent corporate tax rate nearly in half. This slick corporate sales pitch is a sensible response to a new tax bill that is among the most unpopular tax plans in recent memory , largely because middle-income families understand they were at best an afterthought for the legislation’s authors. But these corporate claims...